Japanese Culture

[Kudryavka]

Originally Posted by Qikz

Probably, because by the time legal releases are out in America (yeah, they hardly ever reach England), they aired months ago and watching them that late is annoying! I want to watch it live or, buy the merchandise and stuff live Japan! Thanks to the internet, I can do both though. <3

Also, it doesn't help with the fact the only stuff they ever officially translate is stuff that a lot of people are not interested in. Like at the local convention we have in London every May and October, the only translated Manga is either Manga from like the 80's I've never heard of, or Bleach/Naruto/One Peice which really doesn't interest me.

They bring over just about the popular manga nowadays, even the trashy ones. Finding a recent manga or anime that isn't licensed isn't nearly as easy as it used to be.

[thevil1]

Originally Posted by Komari

They bring over just about the popular manga nowadays, even the trashy ones. Finding a recent manga or anime that isn't licensed isn't nearly as easy as it used to be.

I may have missed somthing, but if your talking about buying unlicensed stuff then to my knowledge that's impossible to find it in a store. You could always use a torrent. But I don't like to recommend them because they are often illegal.

[Qikz]

Originally Posted by Komari

They bring over just about the popular manga nowadays, even the trashy ones. Finding a recent manga or anime that isn't licensed isn't nearly as easy as it used to be.

I'm not sure where you're from, but in the UK (Close to London) that certainly isn't the case. I can never find any manga stuff anywhere which isn't the three main, Bleach, Naruto, One Peice combo.

It's kind of annoying.

[Vexx]

As for manga, I can spiel off dozens titles that haven't been licensed... another bunch that took several *years* to get licensed... and a fair pack of licensed manga that the licensing publisher couldn't be bothered to finish. The US sees a fraction of what is published.

Its gotten a *little* better as for anime... but still I've got probably a hundred series in my archives that have never been licensed and won't be (and not for lack of me wanting to buy them).

If you don't live in the US (Region 1 DVD land), the situation is far worse, as Qikz notes.

However, this really isn't the thread for that topic, its more about discussing, analyzing, and communicating Japanese culture

[Vexx]

Bringing the thread back on topic (it seems to have gotten lost):

Japanese Schoolgirl Confidential: How Teenage Girls Made a Nation Cool
.... an analysis of a phenomenon written by Brian Ashcroft and Shoko Ueda of Wired Magazine and reviewed by Sarah Boslaugh

...for adults, schoolgirls represent a time of innocence and unlimited choices before taking on serious obligations such as work and family, while for younger kids, the freedom of action granted these teenage characters represents something they aspire to.

http://www.popmatters.com/pm/review/...th-shoko-ueda/

[SeijiSensei]

Japanese Teens Cell Phone Use "Out of Control"

They could have been describing my niece who lives in New Jersey. She carried on text conversations with her friends during Thanksgiving dinner at her grandmother's house.

I was surprised that texting while eating was more frequent among Japanese kids than texting in the bath. Certainly the portrayals of these activities in anime would suggest that meals are somewhat formal and family-centric affairs while sitting in the bathtub offers the child some personal time for relaxation and reflection. I can't imagine the kids in shows like Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 or Ghost Hound, which purport to show realistic family settings, would be texting during dinner. Perhaps its more common at breakfast or lunch, especially since the latter is at school? On the other hand, I can't think of any scenes where a kid is texting in the bathtub? Anyone else?

(By the way, why are the messages sent by Japanese kids called "e-mails" in this article when the equivalent for Americans, "text messages," is used when describing the US?)

I guess it's just the applied mathematician in me, but I thought the statistics reported suggested that texting was way more "out of control" in the US. Consider this:

"...one in five middle school students sends or receives 50 or more emails on their phone each day. Furthermore, seven percent of these students admitted to sending more than 100 emails each day. "

So let's make some assumptions: Suppose the 7% sending over 100 messages per day send, on average, 120. Let's assign an average of 75 to the 20% in the 50-99 category, and an average of 20 to the rest of the kids. Then we get:

Japanese middle-schoolers: 0.07*120+0.20*75+0.73*20 = 38 messages/day * 30 days = 1040 messages/month

US teens: 2,272 per month

Who's out of control, again?

(Ah, the wonders of arithmetic.)

Obviously different assumptions would yield different results. For instance, increasing the high group from 120 to 150 pushes the daily average up to about 62, but that still puts the Japanese kids behind the Americans. Increasing the low-usage group from an average of 20 to 30 increases the overall average to just under 68, still not up there with the Americans at an average of nearly 76 text messages per day.

[JMvS]

Originally Posted by SeijiSensei

(By the way, why are the messages sent by Japanese kids called "e-mails" in this article when the equivalent for Americans, "text messages," is used when describing the US?)

That's because in Japan they no longer are using text messaging from mobile phone number to mobile phone number, like we do in the rest of the World.

Instead they are consulting their e-mails on their cellphones. Thus, if in Japan somebody you befriend ask for exchanging e-mail addresses, don't start with writing huge walls of text like I did.

See wikipedia.

[Kudryavka]

@Seiji I don't think anyone's out of control; but apparently the Japanese think so of themselves.

[thevil1]

This is amazing...

[Vexx]

I'd define the texting/email concerns as "Kids these Days!! ARgleBargleFroth" and I think that's what Seiji is noting.

I dunno.... I think a lot of people are addicted to indoor plumbing, electricity, cars, and such

[0utf0xZer0]

The idea of sending dozens of e-mails per day sounds unusual, but it depends a bit how they're using it too. If they're using it similar to how you use an instant messanging app - ie. rapid back and forth communication - those numbers aren't surprising at all. Except for the fact that people can actually stand to tap out that many messages on a cell phone.

[SeijiSensei]

Originally Posted by Komari

@Seiji I don't think anyone's out of control; but apparently the Japanese think so of themselves.

I don't think they're "out of control," either.

Spoiler for OT:

I do, however, think that texting while eating dinner with one's family is extremely rude. Since my niece's parents don't seem to object to her behavior, I refrained from expressing my displeasure. I wonder if parents who permit texting during meals would also tolerate talking on their cellphones during meals as well. I think not.

[TinyRedLeaf]

Originally Posted by SeijiSensei

Spoiler for OT:

I do, however, think that texting while eating dinner with one's family is extremely rude. Since my niece's parents don't seem to object to her behavior, I refrained from expressing my displeasure. I wonder if parents who permit texting during meals would also tolerate talking on their cellphones during meals as well. I think not.

*gasp* You're showing your vintage, jiji.

On a more serious note though, I think times are changing and, along with them, dinnertime etiquette. I can imagine a time when parents would have disapproved of children watching TV during dinner, for example, but that has now become a norm for many families — part of what people do together during meals.

That wasn't the norm for me, incidentally. My father was particularly strict with me (perhaps because I was the elder son? I'll never know now), to the extent of dumping my food should I play with it or show signs of tarrying with my meal. He softened his stance only as I got older. I can well imagine how he might have disciplined me if I were a child today, texting or chatting away on my cellphone during dinner.

[ChainLegacy]

Answering the odd text message during a meal is fine in my eyes, but if you're carrying out a virtual conversation and ignoring the people around you it can be pretty obnoxious. I honestly have trouble believing the Japanese could text more than American teens, since from what I've experienced they pretty much are at the limit.

Does the sending of e-mails rather than texts offer them a cost advantage?

[SeijiSensei]

Originally Posted by TinyRedLeaf

*gasp* You're showing your vintage, jiji.

My eighteen-year-old daughter thought it was rude, too.

[Vexx]

As do I and everyone I know of any age whom I care to associate with (and yeah, I actually associate with more 20-somethings than people near my age) - it is rude ... but this is off-topic

[TinyRedLeaf]

Originally Posted by ChainLegacy

Does the sending of e-mails rather than texts offer them a cost advantage?

My impression is that, to the Japanese, e-mail is synonymous with text messages (more commonly called SMSes here in Singapore), because of the way mobile Internet e-mail has developed in Japan, as mentioned by JMvS.

I am under the further impression that the Japanese don't usually use their PCs for leisure, including the sending of recreational e-mail. I don't know why, although I can guess at a few reasons. Whatever the real reason, once e-mail became available on mobile networks, I believe it simply became so popular that few Japanese think of using anything other than their mobile phones to send them.

Originally Posted by SeijiSensei

My eighteen-year-old daughter thought it was rude, too.

Don't get me wrong, I think it is rude, too. But, unlike Vexx, I don't hang out so often with 20-somethings any more (a 10-plus year gap is sufficiently wide enough for us not to have much in common to talk about; curiously, though, I appear to do a lot better with kids under 10), so I am not fully aware of what passes as permissible phone etiquette among them nowadays.

[Vexx]

It isn't for lack of wanting to hang out with my own age group... but the people my age who think like I do are scattered across the country thanks to career moves (ex-NASA, etc) or retirement. My two sons and I occasionally host LAN parties or gather together for anime-thons or whatnot and some of them are cosplayers as well. Most of them can talk circles around the locals my age on any topic imaginable (politics, science, etc).

Back onto Japanese Culture... this article (as pathetically tragic as it is) has me pondering the underlying connection between Shinto shrine maidens of old times versus the "otaku idols" of today. Whatever the situation, it renders an unsustainable situation for japan as a society.

Article: "No sex please, we are otaku!"
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-b...0100919bj.html

[0utf0xZer0]

Originally Posted by Vexx

Back onto Japanese Culture... this article (as pathetically tragic as it is) has me pondering the underlying connection between Shinto shrine maidens of old times versus the "otaku idols" of today. Whatever the situation, it renders an unsustainable situation for japan as a society.

Article: "No sex please, we are otaku!"
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-b...0100919bj.html

You know, I had always assumed that the people involved in the whole Kannagi incident were angry because of some infringement on a deflowering fantasy, but the vibe I'm getting from this is that these weirdos are actually pissed about their idol being defiled in what is literally almost a religious sense.

That actually explains why Kannagi in particular would have attracted these kinds of nutjobs, however, it simply makes me feel even more like these people are way off in the deep end. Not to mention rather different from your garden variety "character x is mai waifu" otaku.

[Kudryavka]

Originally Posted by 0utf0xZer0

You know, I had always assumed that the people involved in the whole Kannagi incident were angry because of some infringement on a deflowering fantasy, but the vibe I'm getting from this is that these weirdos are actually pissed about their idol being defiled in what is literally almost a religious sense.

That actually explains why Kannagi in particular would have attracted these kinds of nutjobs, however, it simply makes me feel even more like these people are way off in the deep end. Not to mention rather different from your garden variety "character x is mai waifu" otaku.

What baffles me is how otaku can feel possessive of a person they've never met. One reason why I pass teen boy heartthrobs by; I don't even want to be tempted to fantasize, lol.